


Some Days, My Soul's Confined and Out of Mind

by Alcoholic_kangaroo



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood Drinking, Child Marriage, Cults, M/M, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:54:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14910503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alcoholic_kangaroo/pseuds/Alcoholic_kangaroo
Summary: AU. When Will was seven years old he was kidnapped by a religious cult. The authorities found him at the age of fifteen when they raided the compound. Longfic.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I could have set this in the 80s for the show's actual timeline. But this is an AU so I don't have to. I could have set it in modern days, but I prefer to write in a time without the widespread use of cellphones. Instead, I'm taking the easy route and setting it so Will was born in the mid-80s, which mirrors my own childhood, because I feel it will be easier for me to convey a childhood in this era than any other. And sorry Jopper fans, Bob is the best and deserves to live.

Jonathan was the one who picked up the phone when they called. It was pure fate, really. As a college Freshman he was only home because it was Christmas break. A week earlier and he would have been in New York and it would have been either his mother or Bob who had answered the phone. Jonathan feels like he needed to answer that phone. Like it was the universe dialing him directly.

It didn't matter if he was home, not really. They wouldn't speak to him, insisting they speak to his mother, but he knew it was about Will. Why else would the police call them?

'They found the body,' was his immediate thought. Though the words were not so precise. It was more of an image in his head of his brother's tiny little body being dug up in some long-forgotten ditch. In this image his brother's hair would be matted with mud, his eyes closed, his skin unnaturally pale.

The idea was ridiculous, of course. Will had been missing for eight years. He would either be much older or just a skeleton by now.

“Mom, it's for you,” his voice had come robotically. Emotionless. But his hands were trembling. “It's the police.”

Within second she was sobbing on the phone and both Jonathan and Bob had stood at her sides, rubbing her back, trying to comfort her. Jonathan had felt eleven years old again. Even back then he had tried to comfort her, to remain calm and in control of his emotions, when he himself felt like his entire life was unraveling. It was the least he could do. He had lost her little boy. He had lost his little brother.

Joyce had thanked the person on the other line and Bob, understanding as he always is, had stepped aside so Jonathan could be the one to take his weeping mother into his arms. She had pressed her hands against his chest, curled up into fists that were much too small to be a mother's, and her breath had been hot through Jonathan's t-shirt. She was crying and talking at once and all of it was muffled against his chest.

“Mom, Mom,” Jonathan interrupted, gently, soothingly “We can't understand you. Slow down.”

“He's, he's at a, a hospital in California,” the words came out slurred and wet. “They already have a place for us to stay. They said it may take awhile and, and we shouldn't be surprised by how he's acting.”

Which brings Jonathan to now.

The words had been absurd. Don't be surprised by how he's acting? How could anybody not be surprised by this spectacle? To be fair, the officer had tried to stop them from entering the room immediately, saying he wanted to talk to them first, but Joyce wasn't letting any man in a uniform keep her from her son a moment longer.

When Joyce had said hospital Jonathan had assumed a normal medical center. Not a psychiatric center.

They have Will strapped down in his bed. It depresses the hell out of Jonathan. His baby brother shouldn't be chained down in an asylum like a rabid dog. But he keeps trying to run. Earlier, he had screamed and hollered and threatened the hand of “The Creator” upon them all. Now, he's just writhing and sobbing and begging to be let go.

Whenever anybody touches him he screeches as if he's being murdered and yells at them “Impure!”

Even their mother. Even Jonathan.

Last time Jonathan had seen Will was eight years ago. He had been an underdeveloped seven-year-old boy with eyes too big for his face and clothes too big for his body, but it had been October and those clothes were supposed to last him for the entire school year so the latter part had been on purpose, unlike his eyes which were a happy mistake.

Will had been wearing a plastic clearance backpack of navy blue on his back and holding his Muppet Babies lunchbox in his right hand, a lunchbox he hated because he was seven-years-olds and anything baby-related was for little kids and girls, but his mother had found it for fifty cents at a yard sale so that was what he got. Before leaving the house their mother had scolded Will for not buttoning his jacket (a blue, red, and green Nylon windbreaker) all the way up and already he had unzipped it and it was hanging loose off his narrow shoulders.

“Don't be late again,” Jonathan had scolded the boy. Will was always late. He got distracted talking to Mike Wheeler, his best friend, and one time he had even gone home with him without asking for permission. It had given his mother a heart attack and left him grounded for two weeks. “If you're late again I'm going home without you.”

Jonathan came to regret those words. More than any words he had ever spoken in his life. How many nights did he lie alone in bed afterwards, wishing, preying, that he could go back in time and just undo them?

Of course he never would have gone home without Will. Even that time Will had gone to Mike's without permission he hadn't left. He had gone back inside the school and called their mother, crying, from the office phone. The Wheelers had been her first instinct on Will's location and she had been correct that time. The second time she had to call the Wheelers asking about her son's whereabouts she had been wrong.

For once, it had been Jonathan running late. He had totally forgotten about the age 10-15 photography contest Mrs. Rausch had entered him in and she had kept him back to congratulate him and present him with the placement letter he had received. Not good enough to win any prizes, but they were going to feature one of his photographs in the little book they were going to publish.

The photograph had been a picture a Will. A tiny slip of a boy barely visible as he pouted behind a houseplant at the dentist. It appeared more significant than a kid going in for a check-up, but nobody had to know that. It was “deep.”

Jonathan had been excited to tell Will about it. Not just that his photo was being printed but that it was of Will! Will would be in a book!

When he arrived at the bike rack, Jonathan's bike was the only one left in its place. And there had been no sign of Will.

He would come to learn that Will had taken Jonathan's previous threat seriously.

“He thought you had left already,” Mike had said, his voice much more subdued than usual. “I stayed with him until he left. He s, said he would just go home alone. I told him he could come home with me but h, he didn't want to get in trouble again. Is Will going to be okay?”

Mike was the last person to see Will. They had found his lunchbox in the dumpster behind the Dairy Queen. Some people speculated if he would have gone out of his way to bike all that way just for an ice cream but the employees had no memories of a small boy coming in on his own and Will never had any spare money on him. Not even lunch money, since Jonathan had packed his lunch for him every day, along with his own. Their mother couldn't afford lunch money.

The lunchbox sits on a display shelf in their living room, next to a picture of Will, a couple framed drawings in crayon, a newspaper clipping, and Mr. Giggles, Will's favorite stuffed rabbit.

Stupidly, Jonathan finds himself wondering if he should have brought Mr. Giggles along. Would that have helped Will feel any better? It used to. When he had nightmares he would bring Mr. Giggles into Jonathan's bed and Jonathan would make it talk and Will would laugh and feel relaxed enough to go back to sleep. Though not in his own bed. Jonathan would hold him from behind, snuggling against him, and promise that no nightmares could make it through his arms around him.

Will is fifteen years old now. Fifteen-year-olds don't respond to stupid talking stuffed animals. And you can't battle brainwashing with cuddles. They use sedatives instead.

“We had no idea he was even on the compound,” the office explains to them both, outside of the room because they don't want to risk talking in front of Will, even though he is now unconscious. “We were watching them for awhile. The whole lot of them are crazy, totally bonkers, but we couldn't do anything about it for a long time because of 'religious prosecution.' So many criminals cover their tracks with that excuse. We had heard stuff about blood sacrifices and brainwashing for years but we didn't have enough evidence to demand entrance to their church.”

“What changed that?” Joyce asked. She squeezes Jonathan's hand, Bob pulls her closer to him with the arm around her waist. “Did somebody have to end up dead for the government to let you do your jobs?”

The officer removes his hat and scratches the scarce hair on the back of his head. He looks uncomfortable. “This, this little girl. She escaped and waved down a passing car. Told the couple inside she had run away from home because she didn't want to get married. She was, she was only eleven, for Christ sake.” He slips his hat back onto his head.

Joyce's mouth is open, horrified. Jonathan takes the opposite approach, gritting them so hard he's afraid one of them might crack. Bob makes an odd whimpering noise.

“We, um, we had to separate the kids right off the bat,” the officer continues. “They, uh. These are some sick fucks, pardon the language. Almost all of the ones below the age of twelve have these, these bandages on their hands. Doctors say all their palms are sliced open with knives.”

“And the ones above twelve?” Jonathan asks? The words spill out of his mouth before he realizes he's even speaking. Will is above twelve.

“None of them have the bandages,” the officer confirms. “But a lot of them have old scars. Many scars, like they were cut open repeatedly. I'm sorry to say, though, that the younger ones might be the better off in this situation.”

Joyce covers her mouth with her hand, a small sobbing noise escaping before she can help herself. Jonathan looks down at the floor, waiting for the officer to continue, because this isn't some shitty soap opera. People don't leave off on cliffhangers. The officer runs his hand over his mouth, his palm scratching against rough stubble.

“Everybody on the compound over the age of eleven is married,” the officer says. Jonathan feels vaguely sorry for this man. Surely, people do not become police because they want to give people bad news. They do it to catch bad guys. Or for the bribes, if old mobster movies are anything to go off of. The poor man's face has gone purple. “I'm sorry to say the rumors of child marriage proved to be true. Your, um, your son is the third wi-uh, spouse, of a man by the name of Joel Sprucer. It took us nearly a week to figure out his identity because, well, there weren't any reports for a missing Will Sprucer in our records. Most of the children were born on the compound, so we didn't even think to try the missing kids registry at first. We were just trying to figure out who belonged to who. But, well, not to sound racist, ma'am, but an Asian couple were claiming him as their son and that just didn't quite fit right. It's a good thing you had him fingerprinted in kindergarten or we never would have ID'd him.”

Jonathan is hearing the words. He's understanding the words. But he isn't feeling the words. He's thinking to himself “Huh, my little brother is married.” But the words are as emotionally charged to him as thinking “Huh, there's a spider web in that corner over there.”

Joyce, on the other hand, has collapsed into Bob's arms entirely at this point. She's hysterical, and Jonathan is seeing her heaving shoulders through the same fog of numbness. He blinks, recognizing his mother, but not seeing her.

This leaves Bob in charge, as the only one capable of speaking.

“How long until we can take him home?”

“We can have him transferred to a hospital closer to your town,” the officer says. “But it will probably be awhile before any doctors feel he will be competent to be on his own. That boy has, he's gone through years of indoctrination. It's not something you can just undo overnight. I think it'd be best if you speak to the doctors on that. I have more details to go over, later, but that can wait until tomorrow. I'm sure you all just want to spend time with Will.”

Bob never knew Will. But he wants to be there for Joyce, and for Jonathan who he has been like a father to for the last five years, so he thanks the officer for them all. Joyce needs a moment so Bob buys her a coffee and Jonathan goes back into Will's room on his own.

Maybe he needs a minute alone with his brother anyway.

He looks totally different yet somehow exactly the same as the brother he remembers. The same dark eyes. The same mole right above his lip. The same nose that's just a little too big for his face. Asleep, like this, he looks more like his brother than the trashing, angry demon they had been greeted with an hour ago. Even at the age of seven, Will had been such a calm, laid back child. Unlike any other child Jonathan had ever known, except maybe himself. Their grandmother, before she had passed, used to say that Will had an “old soul.” Whatever that was supposed to mean.

Jonathan isn't sure about Will's soul but he certainly looks older than Jonathan wants him to. Deep down, he knows that it's been eight years and Will should be a teenager. Hell, if anything, Will looks younger than he is. Closer to thirteen than fifteen, if somebody were to look at him and guess his age. But he's not the tiny dumpling of a boy he was at seven and it's jarring.

He sits down in the chair at his side and just watches him breathe for a long moment. Then he takes his hand in his own. The skin is rough and tears well up in Jonathan's eyes as he sees thr multiple scars cutting across his palm.

Will's legs look thin and long, jutting out from beneath the blue hospital gown, nothing like the short, chubby appendages of his youth. His arms are skinny, leanly muscled, and tan. As if he's spent a lot of time out in the sun. His hair is long, spread out around the pillow around him. It's darkened some over the years, going from a light brown with honey tones to a darker shade of chocolate. The blue paper gown moves up and down with each breath. His breathing is even and relaxed. Overall, he just looks like a skinny, teenage boy in need of a haircut.

He looks like his brother. An older, tired out, badly dressed version of his brother.

He doesn't look like the husband of some perverted cult follower.

Jonathan stands up and leans over the prone body. His lips are soft against Will's forehead.

"I won't let anything happen to you ever again," he promises Will. "Your big brother will make sure those bastards all pay if he has to kill every last one of them with his bare hands."


	2. Orientation

On his fifth day with the strange people, Will cries for his mother as he wets himself.

It's been only five days but, for Will, it feels like weeks. He only knows the date because they announce it every time the heavy, booming bell tolls from somewhere far away. “It is now October 22nd, 1992, our beloved child.”

But Will's body has aged years, not days. He feels utterly exhausted. If he were to just fall asleep and die right now that would not be totally unwelcome. Life has become unbearable. His joints ache and his vertebrae ache and his hips ache. His grandmother used to complain about those places aching on her body. “My knees are aching again, it must be about to rain.” But his back and shoulders ache from being forced to sit up in the chair, day and night, not from old age. The chair is large and made out of hard wood. There is no softness to the chair. It is all angles and sharp corners and the edge of the seat pinches the sensitive skin along the inside of his knees. His arms are held in place with strips of soft white cloth, his wrists bound to the wide arms of the chair.

He is very, very hungry. Hungrier than he has ever been in his life. They've barely let him out of this chair since they brought him into this room so he thinks he shouldn't be that hungry, he's not working up an appetite. But he is.

He has been released only long enough to poop and pee, and that he does in a pail in the corner. They give him no privacy to do so and they remove the pail afterwards. It was worse, the first couple days, when he had to crouch over the bucket, humiliated. But now he's only liquid comes out of him because they have not fed him.

Mostly he receives water to drink, but every so often it's something else. Something dark red that tastes sour and sweet at the same time that he wants to spit out but is too afraid to. His stomach feels shrunken. It churns and growls and complains and makes him nauseous. He frequently feels as if he's about to vomit, but eventually, always, the feeling passes. But it always returns as well. His head aches consistently.

Even in this state. Sitting up, head aching, stomach growling, he is so beyond drained he finds himself falling asleep. Not for long. Immediately, as soon as his eyes close, hands are on him, shaking him, keeping him awake. They whisper in his ear that the Creator does not give time to rest, that Salvation is his immediate concern, before all else. When he is absolutely incapable of staying awake they pour buckets of ice cold water over his head. He presses his thighs close together and shivers and weeps as he waits for his clothes to slowly warm against his body. The heat of the room helps them dry but the cloth beneath his bottom never does and he feels sore and chafed there by the fourth day.

The first day he had cried for his mother. He called her mom, then he called her mommy, which he hadn't done sine he started school. Then he had cried for Jonathan, like he did when he crawled into his bed at night. Then he had even cried for Mike. He didn't know why he cried for Mike, except the words just seemed to spill out from somewhere inside him. The strange people yelled at him that they were all dead and to forget about them.

“They're part of your old life!”

Will didn't bother to cry for Lonnie. He didn't want his father. He wanted somebody warm who would hold him and tell him it was all just a dream. He wanted to take a long, hot bath. He wanted to go home, eat a grilled cheese sandwich with a bowl of hot tomato soup, lay down in his bed, and sleep a very long time.

They read to him from a great book. It's very thick and the pages are large, wider and longer than a phone book. Will can see pictures in the book, when he tries to peer at the pages from his spot on the chair, but they're indecipherable at this angle. They're colorful pictures though, done in a myriad of various watercolors. Like a child's book. Like a book that would have talking bunnies with beautiful, enticing bowls of blue and red berries. Will misses Mr. Wiggles, but he doesn't cry for the stuffed bunny.

The strange people come and go, replaces by others, but they're all dressed in red. The males in robes, the women in dresses. All the clothes seem to flow and shimmer with light. A handful are repeat visitors. Sometimes it's an old gray-haired man with a beard and large nose. Sometimes it's a middle age woman with blond hair tied back in a long braid behind her back. Sometimes a teenage boy, acne-ridden, with a voice that cracks as he reads. Sometimes a young girl barely older than Will. She is the only one not dressed in red. She wears white. She has shiny black hair and angular eyes. Will wonders if she's Chinese or Japanese. There aren't many Asian kids in Will's school.

The girl is the one who brings Will water. It's in a heavy metal cup, gold colored but Will doesn't think it's made of gold. No matter how thirsty he is she only allows him to drink one cupful of water at a time and the cup doesn't hold that much water.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks on the third day, the sour sweet liquid dripping down his chin as he struggles to keep it down. She wipes at it before it stains his clothes. The liquid feels dry on his throat, somehow, and he yearns for water instead. His throat is hoarse from crying, it's been hours since they last brought him any water, and the room is hot. His face is damp with sweat. The wetness of his clothes only makes the heat feel more humid and stifling.

“Only the Pure can bring you nourishment,” she tells him, her voice very even and serious for a little girl. To Will, it sounds like an adult voice with a child's timbre.

And that didn't answer Will's question. He doesn't care to know why she's the one who gives him water. He wants to know why he's here!

She sits back down in the small, cushioned chair across from Will and picks up the great book. She continues reading, articulating words that Will doesn't think he would be capable of deciphering, and Will lets his head droop back down onto his chest. He can see her bare feet poking out from beneath the long white dress she's wearing. It looks very similar to his own clothing, the same fabric as the white pants and shirt the strange people had dressed him in. The cloth is soft and silky against his skin, much softer than the clothing he is used to at home, but he would rather have his stiff jeans and scratchy flannels over these clothes. His own feet are cold and numb, dangling a good foot from the ground. He would do anything for a pair of warm socks. His toes look blue.

“Only the Pure can grant Salvation upon the Impure,” the girl reads, her voice deceptively sweet. “For the Pure are most beloved by the Creator and they are Chosen among all Creations.”

Will has been to church a few times. Not with his mother or father like Mike does every Sunday (he isn't sure why some families go and some families do not) but his grandmother had taken him on Christmas eve last year. The words in the great book remind Will of the words spoken by the man there, with all the stuff about the Chosen and Salvation. Will hadn't understood the words at the time but they had sounded very important. But the man dressed in black at that church hadn't tied up the people he spoke to. However, there had been a similar golden cup at that church as well that the man had lifted to his grandmother's lips. And little crackers to eat. Will wasn't allowed to drink from that cup or eat the little crackers. He hadn't cared at the time, it was Christmas and there was much better food anywhere you looked, but crackers sounded mouth-wateringly divine right now.

When he asks the little girl, again, on the fourth day, why they're doing this to him, she replies “Father says you are my new little brother and I am to help in your Salvation.”

A better answer, but one that makes no sense to Will. Little brother? He is only one person's little brother and that is Jonathan's. If Jonathan was here right now he would use his pocket knife to cut through the soft cloth bindings and lead him out of the room. Tears run down his face as he cries once more and begs for Jonathan to come get him.

“Jonathan, please, come get me. I only want to be your little brother.”

The little girl slaps him across the face. It's surprisingly hard, she's not that much bigger than Will, and his face stings. The impact was magnified in force by the tears on his face. He stares at her with wide eyes, one of them throbbing.

“If you tell them I hit you,” the little girl hisses angrily, “I'll make sure to spill your next cup of water all down your chest.”

His arms begin to shake in their bindings, chafing his wrists, but he can't help himself. He is terrified. That was the first time anybody had hit him since he had been taken.

They had taken him as he was biking the short distance between school and home. It wasn't that far, no further than the trip between his and Mike's house, but usually he made it with Jonathan. Not that day. Will had been late again that day.

It was his fault, he knew it was, but he just had trouble saying goodbye to Mike sometimes. Mike is wonderfully sweet and exceptionally funny and when he smiles his eyes crinkle in the corners and his mouth seems to become as elastic as silly putty, with how big his smile is. And he always has new, interesting stories and facts to tell Will. So when Mike had started telling him about this new thing he learned about naked mole rats, grinning in excitement the whole time, Will had been too entranced to tell him to stop. How could he say no to Mike's blinding smile?

When they arrived at the bike rack in front of the school Will couldn't see Jonathan's bike anywhere. He thought he saw it but it must have just been one that looked like Jonathan's (they both have pretty generic K-Mart brand bikes) because Jonathan wasn't there and Jonathan is always on time. Always.

Will had waited and waited for Jonathan to show up but he didn't and eventually Mike, who was still waiting with him and had gone quiet eventually, said he had to go home.

“Come home with me,” Mike prodded, nudging at Will with his shoulder. He's taller than Will by a good head and it always makes Will feel like he should follow whatever he tells him to do, like he's an adult. But Mike is only a few months older than Will. “We'll call your mom from my house. And I can show you the Technodrome before everybody else gets to play with it.”

Will had wanted to go. He's excited to play with Mike's new toy and he loves Mike's house. Mrs. Wheeler always has homemade cookies ready and Mike has an entire basement to himself, on top his own bedroom which is already bigger and nicer than Will's bedroom.

Will really loves being alone in the basement with him. Sometimes they play pretend. Maybe that they're in a snowed in cabin, or that they're stowaways in the cargo hold of a ship. Sometimes the basement is a cave, sometimes it's a pyramid. Lucas, the boy who lives down the street from Mike, joins in sometimes. But Will likes it best when it's just him and Mike.

Will had really wanted to go home with Mike. But last time he had gone home with Mike without asking permission he had gotten grounded. And he didn't want to make his mom worry again. She's always fighting with his father about him as it is, he didn't need to give her another reason for them to yell at each other.

“No, I'm not a little kid,” Will had said, shaking his head. “I can bike home on my own. You do it every day.” Well, not every day. But Nancy, Mike's big sister, has a lot of after school activities she stays late for. Science club. Soccer. Band practice.

“Alright, if you're sure?” Mike replied, the statement coming out more like a question, giving Will one last chance to agree to bike home with him. “Well, I'll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” Will had agreed, already kicking off the ground to give himself some momentum before he started peddling. He called back to Mike over his shoulder, “Don't forget to bring the Technodrome!”

They grabbed him about three quarters of the way home. But even then they hadn't hurt him. They had tricked him. It was a very stupid, trick, really. Will shouldn't have fallen for it.

There had been a couple of women, not that old really, they seemed like they probably went to the high school. But still very adult-looking to a seven-year-old. They were just strolling innocently down the side of the otherwise empty back road, walking several dogs. Giant, white, fluffy things that jumped excitedly at Will as he biked by. Usually, Will doesn't see anybody walking out here. Only the occasional car passing by.

“Aw, they like you,” one of the young women had cooed as one of the dogs pawed at his legs. Its claws were short and it didn't hurt, it was like being pawed at by a giant hacky sack. Will had slowed down to watch them, curious, because he had never seen this type of dog before. They were so big and soft looking and Will loves dogs. He coasted so slowly the bike was wobbling, losing its balance.

“You're going to hurt their feelings if you don't stop and pet them,” the second woman had pouted at him, her voice high and breathy. “Oh, Fluffernutter, it's okay. He doesn't hate you! Who's a good boy?”

Will hadn't seen any harm in stopping just for a minute. He wasn't that late getting home. And there was nothing dangerous about two high school girls and their pack of dogs. His mother always told him not to take candy from strangers and not to get in strange cars or to talk to strange adults.

But these girls were not adults! And the dogs had been as soft and nice as they looked, their fur as long and shimmering as the women's hair. One of them had jumped on Will and it had stood taller than him with its paws balanced on Will's shoulders. He had laughed because he had never had to look up at a dog like this and the dog was grinning, apparently happy as could be to see Will.

Will hadn't seen the car hiding around the next corner. He didn't know about the men in the trees just behind him. He didn't know there was anybody but these two girls until there was a hand covering his mouth and two pairs of arms around his body. They simply picked him up and tossed into the trunk of the car as if he were a sack of garbage. It was so quick it took maybe twenty seconds. No cars drove by and nobody saw a little boy being abducted on an overgrown back road.

Will had felt the gravel beneath the tires as they took off. He heard the roar of the engine. Felt the vibrations of the automobile. He pounded at the top of the trunk, yelling at the strangers to let him go. Inside was dark and whenever the car took a corner he was slammed into the side. The air was stuffy and hot and he began to have trouble breathing after a short while. He stopped screaming and listened to his own panting breaths. His face was damp with sweat.

Will wasn't in the trunk for long. He felt the car stop and heard the key in the lock. The air was cool and refreshing when the trunk swung open. He jumped up, tries d to make a run for it, but he was caught before even hitting the ground and this time his arms and legs were tied up and his mouth gagged. Then he was put in the back of a white van. They tied him to a pole in the back and he sat for a long time with his legs out in front of him. It was light out then, the sun still shining through the windows.

He had cried to be let go. He had cried for his mom. He cried because he had been stupid and he cried because he was scared and he cried because his mom and Jonathan were probably worried about him. He didn't know what they were going to do with him but he knew it probably wouldn't be nice. Lonnie always told him to not to talk to strange men because they'd throw him in the back of their truck and rape him. Will wasn't exactly sure what that meant but Lonnie said it was the worse thing that could happen to a boy.

Day turned to night then back to day before they stopped the van again. He cried nearly the entire drive, only dozing off for a few hours. The position was uncomfortable and he kept jerking awake with a start. His head hurt from crying so much but he couldn't stop.

When they arrived at the destination they blindfolded him before removing him from the van. They lead him with heavy hands on both of his shoulders. The ground was hard and uneven beneath his feet. It sounded like sand or small pebbles crunching beneath his feet. Suddenly, something banged against his foot and he was falling, but he was caught before he hit the ground and set back on his feet. That simply, as if he was just set down like a small cat. When they removed the blindfold he was in this room.

Through all that, they never slapped him. They grabbed him. They held him down. They treated him like dead weight. But they never hit him or kicked him. The little girl was the first one to hit him.

Then on the fifth day they pull out the knife. That was when Will pees the silken white pants. The man does not hear him begging for his mom as the bell tolls.

“It is October 24th, 1992” the man holding the knife tells him. “The 24th will be your Bleeding Day.”

Will decides then he doesn't want to die. He wants his mom. He wants Jonathan. He wants Mike. He wants Mr. Wiggles. He wants his bed. He wants his mommy.

“Each of the Pure has their own knife,” the man continues. He shows Will the intricate carvings on the metal handle. Will tries to turn his head away but the man grabs him by the chin and forces him to look at the knife. He can't tell what the engravings are. It is too dark in this room and he is too scared. Will is shivering and the pee beneath him is already starting to cool “This is your knife. On your last Bleeding Day it will be given to you as a personal token.”

They untie him and lead him out of the room. Outside of the room the rest of the building is large and airy and bright. The sunshine streaming through the windows makes Will's eyes water after so many days in the dark. He didn't realize it was daytime.

They lead him to another small room but this room is just as bright and sunny as the outside. There is a large tub filled with steaming water in the middle, what appears to be an array of white and yellow flowers floating on the surface. Two women dressed in matching red robes remove Will's urine-soaked clothing and he is told to get in the tub.

They scrub him until he's pink. It's embarrassing and terrifying to be sitting there, naked, in front of these strange people. It's even more embarrassing and terrifying to be touched by them. They touch him everywhere. Not just the back of his neck and between his toes but under the loose skin of his penis and between his butt cheeks. They wash his hair three times. Then they wrap him up in a white terrycloth robe and tidy him up. One of the women cuts his nails, the other rubs some sort of oil into his hair and a different type of oil into his skin. Goosebumps pop up along his arms as her hands massage him. The pressure feels good against his aching muscles. As uncomfortable as the situation is he almost doesn't want that part to end. The oil smells nice. Flowery, like one of the candles his mother's boss gives her every year for Christmas.

Afterwards, the women dress Will up in another pair of white clothes. Somehow, these clothes are even more silken. And they are embroidered in places, along the collar and hems. The embroidery is in gold thread the shimmers under the sunlight streaming through the large windows.

“Be careful with these,” one of the women says, warmly, almost motherly. “These are your Bleeding clothes. They need to last you until your ninth birthday.”

Then Will is taken out of the room. Back into the large, airy room that seems to make up the majority of this building. But now, now the large room is loud and claustrophobic. It is full of people, talking, voices excited. Some of the people are standing, some sitting on long rows of backless benches. They're all strangers. They're all dressed strangely, all the same shade of red. The women and girls in long dresses, the men in odd, loose-fitting pants, the legs nearly as flowing as the women's dresses. They spot Will and a hush permeates the entire room all at once.

He is lead by the two women onto a stage in front of them all. The stage is several steps up from the main floor and Will stumbles, exhausted, over his own feet. The women support him between their arms, allowing him to take his time as he ascends. Above the stage is a large window that takes up the entire wall, stained glass of what looks like children frolicking in a meadow. There's a pond in the middle and trees covered in fruit.

A man dressed all in red, including a heavy looking velvet robe, is waiting on the stage and it takes Will a moment to recognize him as the gray-haired man that sometimes reads to him. He's wearing a large, ornamental hat and his robe is extravagant with lots of tassels and buttons and other odd accouterments. It's not as hot in here as it had been in Will's room but it still seems too warm to wear such a garment.

The gray-haired man clasps Will's shoulder beneath a heavy hand and turns him around to face the crowd. The women leave the stage. The gray-haired man is speaking, his voice echoing throughout the large room, but Will cannot understand what he is saying. The words sound like they're being recited directly from that great book and he feels exposed in front of the crowd, his eyes wide with terror. They're staring at him with shining eyes.

The man talks for what seems like a very long time and the people in front of them sometimes murmur things back to him or they stand up or they sit down or they chant. Will's legs feel wobbly beneath him, weak, incapable of holding his own weight. But somehow he's still on his feet. He feels stiff as a board. If he leans to one side he'll probably fall over like a board would.

The little girl from the room joins them on the stage. She is dressed in her normal white dress, hers has no gold embroidery like Will's outfit. She also seems to know what she's doing as she kneels before the gray-haired man and presents a wooden box in her hands. The gray-haired man takes the box from her, lays his hand on her head, and says some indecipherable words that the people in the crowd echo. Will sways on his feet. He's directly beneath the stained glass windows and the sunlight washes over him in shades of red and orange. He feels lightheaded and lost. The air seems foggy.

Then Will is being taken gently by the hand and lead to a large basin in the middle of the stage. It's made of some sort of brown stone and set partially into the stage itself, as if the stage were built around it. He looks down and sees some sort of liquid inside it. It's light colored and vaguely sweet smelling, like honey and flowers. There are more of those small white and yellow flowers floating on the surface. The man says something in a booming voice.

People begin to clap and Will doesn't understand why. He tries to turn to them, to see what they're doing, but the gray-haired man tells him to look at him instead and Will obeys. Once more the crowd goes quiet, absolute silence. The man takes Will's right hand in his own and turns it over, his palm facing up, and he speaks in a very warm voice now. He's speaking to Will, not the crowd, so Will tries to understand what he's saying. It sounds like “Let the Pure save us all.”

The knife just seems to appear in the man's hand. It's a glint of silver, glowing blue-green from the pond in the stained glass. It makes him think of something cold. Like shadows on ice. Will inhales sharply as it is brought to his hand. He watches in shock as it slices through the skin of his palm as easily as if he were made of warm butter. For a long moment nothing happens. He doesn't take a breath, he doesn't feel the pain. Then the blood wells up and oozes from his raw flesh.

The gray-haired man smiles and slides his own hand beneath Will's, squeezing his fingers shut around Will's smaller hand, making a fist. His hand is much, much stronger than Will's and he can't possibly fight back when he is forced to extend him arm out over the basin. The man tilts both their hands, so Will's fist is vertical rather than horizontal. His own nails are pressed into the wound on his palm, stinging. If Jonathan was here he would wash off the blood, blowing on the cut to ease the sting, and wrap his hand up in a bandage. Or maybe one of Will's _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle_ Band-Aids, but he thinks the cut is too long for a Band-Aid.

Will watches in rapt, unblinking fascination as his blood drips into the translucent liquid below. Each drop of blood hits the water in the form of a perfect, individual glowing droplet of ruby, not an uneven stream of syrupy blood as he would imagine. Each droplet ripples the surface of the liquid, the effect almost hypnotizing.

He doesn't know how long he loses consciousness. One moment he is standing there, watching his blood drip from his hand, then everything goes blurry. He's still on stage when he wakes up, sitting back in a large, cushioned chair. The two women from earlier, the ones in red robes, are using a ladle to fill two goblets of the liquid from the basin. Will knows they're goblets, not just ordinary cups, because he's seen them in cartoons. He doesn't even think about the fact that his blood is now in those goblets.

He raises his hand to his face, expecting to see himself still bleeding, wondering if he will soon bleed to death by how weak he feels, but a white bandage has been wrapped around it. There are strange symbols in gold on the bandage, appearing as if painted with a delicate tipped brush. They remind him of the engravings on the knife the gray-haired man had shown him. His palm is throbbing beneath the bandage, painfully. The little girl stands by his side, quiet and unmoving. He wonders if she is the one who wrapped up his hand. He would forgive her for slapping him if she saved his life.

The people have stood up at some point, when Will was unconscious. All the adults are standing in a line, winding through the aisles, but the children are still seated. He can tell them apart easily, something he hadn't noticed earlier, because all the children wear white.

One of the women goes to the gray-haired man and holds out the goblet she is holding. The gray-haired man holds the goblet before him and speaks what sounds like “Maiden Nectar.” The others in the room repeat his words. Then he lifts the goblet to his lips and only then does Will remember that his blood is in that liquid. Bile rises in his throat, spilling out from between his lips, staining his new white shirt.

“Stop it,” the little girls hisses angrily. “You're messing up the Maiden Bleeding Ceremony.”

Will doesn't care what he's messing up. And he can't stop the nausea racking his body. But there isn't much in his stomach anyway so the next time he heaves nothing comes out but a gross croaking noise.

It really is like that Christmas. And as every adult in that room drinks from the goblets, drinks Will's blood, he wonders if that was what was in the cup that the man had lifted to his grandmother's lips. More importantly, is that what Mike does every Sunday at church?

Time stops. Will doesn't see what is happening before him for a long time. His eyes become unfocused and he starts to drift off. The little girl kicks his foot every time that happens but he doesn't care. He's so, so tired.

The women from earlier drag him from the chair and hold him up in the middle of the stage. He sags between their arm and blinks at the basin. It is nearly empty now. The liquid inside is still clear. He finds that mildly upsetting. He felt like he lost so much blood, surely it should at least be pink?

A man and a woman appear before him. The woman is holding the little girl's hand. She looks like a smaller version of the woman and Will realizes, almost immediately, that she is the little girl's mother. He starts to weep again. He wants his mom. The man bends down and scoops Will into his arms.

“Welcome home,” the man says, his voice surprisingly kind. His arms are sturdy beneath Will's back and knees. “I know you're tired. Your bed is ready, and your mothers are preparing a feast for your arrival. I'll carry you to your new home. Go ahead and sleep.”

Will didn't need permission to do so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry. It's not gonna be all flashback. I'm gonna alternate between past/present. Well, it's all past because the prologue was set in like 2000 but you know what I mean.
> 
> Do we want a Mike chapter next? Or should Joyce get one?


	3. 'Cause No One Around You Understands

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorta shortish but here, you get a Mike chapter. This isn't written the best but, eh. Sometimes you just need to give up. I wrote it three times so it's probably not gonna get any better.

Mike's thumb rubs insistently against the body of his guitar, right below the whammy bar, as he tries to smooth out a white smudge on the vibrant red paint. Holly must have been in his bedroom again while he was out. It looks like dried yogurt and it doesn't come off. He'll need to get a wet cloth and clean it more thoroughly once he's done replacing the strings but he's lazy and doesn't feel like leaving his bedroom right now. He might run into _him_.

Why can't his mother just let him put a lock on his door? Holly never obeys his requests to stay out of his room. Surely he was never this bad of a younger sibling to Nancy, before she left for college? Mike sighs, letting his hand drop. He wishes Nancy was here. He could use the support. But she hasn't come home for her first Christmas vacation, deciding she would rather visit her new boyfriend's family in Florida than deal with the wreck that is their family.

Leaving the yogurt splatter for now, he turns to remove another string from the thin package. It's no wonder they need changing again, if Holly has been in here playing with it. He's told her if she absolutely has to play with his stuff to stick to the acoustic, but that's not how little sisters work. He probably should have told her to only play the Jag, then she would have left it alone.

It takes longer than need be. Mike is tired from school, from midterms, from life. He lingers over the task, enjoying the silence of the room, the feeling of just being alone inside his head. He thinks about El and glances up at his Halloween costume that's still hanging on the back of his closet door. Lots of black straps and leather and metal rings that had taken forever to put on. He had ended up looking like some gay dominatrix; he would have preferred to dress up like a wizard like he had wanted to but she had insisted.

“Mike, your hair is perfect,” El had gushed for months. “Think about it. I'll tease it and you'll look just like Johnny Depp. I can't do this without you, nobody will get that I'm supposed to be Winona Ryder. Come on, everybody will love it.”

Nobody had loved it. While Mike had to admit he did make a very good Edward Scissorhands, the party El had dragged him to had been full of jocks and cheerleaders who wouldn't know Edward Scissorhands from Albert Einstein. Mike had been teased relentlessly the entire night for dressing up as “that guy from Cure” and this probably, indirectly at least, had lead to his and El's eventual breakup.

He misses El. Not as a girlfriend. He knew that just was never meant to last, she was too outgoing and social. Too talkative. But it still hurts to see her holding hands with Dustin in the hallway. He can't be angry about that, they both talked to him beforehand about their relationship, almost asking him permission to date as if he were an overprotective father. But it still hurts in a way that forces him to keep his distance. He's happy for them, really, he just doesn't want to see them.

That only really leaves him with one friend. If Mike is the father of the group, then El is the mother, and Lucas is the child stuck in the middle of a custody battle. Mike gets him Wednesdays and every other weekend.

Not really. It's his own isolation. He knows in the long term things will be fine. He just needs to lay low and lick his wounds for awhile.

His bedroom door slams open suddenly, the doorknob smacking against the rubber ball glued to the wall. Mike jumps, his finger skimming against the sharp end of the wire he's holding, slicing his thumb open. He yelps, jamming it into his mouth.

“Hey!” the angry male voice booms through Mike's bedroom. “What did I tell you about playing the guitar when your mother is trying to sleep? Show her some fucking respect.”

Mike glares at the tall figure in the door. But his thumb is still stuck in his mouth so he probably looks like a pouting toddler rather than a resentful teenager. He pulls it out of his mouth and wipes his hand on his black jeans.

“I'm not playing it,” he gripes, miserably. “I'm just changing the strings.”

“No you're not,” the other male, the other teenager in the room, informs him. There's already a beer in his hand and he's shirtless, shining with sweat. “You know the rules. Homework first. Get your ass downstairs and do your homework.”

Mike's perfectly capable of doing his homework in his bedroom. Except for the current events write up, which he needs to use the computer in the den for. Mike tells him this and he responds by storming across the room, grabbing Mike by the back of his neck, and shaking him like a rottweiler trying to snap the neck of a cat.

“As long as you live in this house you do what I tell you.”

“This house was my house years before you stepped foot into it,” Mike hisses. He pushes back against the larger teen but, well, he's tall for his age but scrawny and underweight and not much of an opponent.

Lucky for him, his complaint is met with a laugh instead of a fist this afternoon and he's released.

“Glad your pathetic father is picking you two up this weekend,” Billy Hargrove smiles that stupid charming smile of his. “We might need your bed for our Christmas party this weekend.”

If his father still lived here, Mike would have been allowed to put that lock on his door. Yogurt on his guitar is nothing compared to what might end up all over his blankets and sheets this weekend. He shudders and considers stripping his bed before leaving Saturday morning. Let them deal with finding a set of sheets when they're all drunk and horny. Or they might just strain his mattress directly, and he can't just throw the mattress into the machine. Besides, if he does that Billy will probably just smack him around when he gets back. No matter how much he complains to his mother about his behavior, she continues to see him as a “chivalrous angel,” a “real man” that can serve as a “good role model” for Mike. Right. What kind of lesson is he teaching him? That the best way to succeed in life is to seduce an older woman?

Knowing not to challenge his mother's boyfriend any further, Mike grabs his backpack and stomps, quietly, down the stairs. If he wakes up his mother it will be a problem. She works nights, something Mike is still getting used to. Not just the schedule but the idea of her working at all. His entire life she has always been home, there and ready to take him to dentist appointments or pick him up early if he got sick at school. He knew she had a nursing degree but as far as he knew she never worked a day of her life, until his father moved out.

That entire situation was a complete mess. Who knows how long it had been building up. As far as Mike knew, they were all one big, happy, fake plastic family. They never fought, really. Their father wasn't an alcoholic or abusive. Their mother never seemed unhappy. Then one day they just sort of announced that they were getting divorced. The next day Ted Wheeler moved out. The next week Billy Hargrove moved in.

Frankly, it's embarrassing as shit. Billy fucking Hargrove. The same boy who had tormented and bullied him throughout both middle school and high school. The same boy who nearly beat Lucas to death when he found out the boy was dating his little sister. The same boy who gave Mike a weekly swirly in the second story bathroom throughout his entire freshman year. That boy is fucking Mike's mom. Neither Lucas nor Dustin will even come near his house anymore. His basement used to be the designated hanging out area, now they're stuck in Dustin's cramped living room. His mother, a plump widow, is nice enough but she's overbearing and always popping in with cookies or brownies or ice cream sundaes. Already prepared. And who is going to resist a middle age woman who already made you an ice cream sundae? Mike feels like if he told her “no thanks” it'd break the poor woman's heart. He thinks he may be getting a cavity from all the sweets.

Holly is already set up at the kitchen table with her own homework. She's only in first grade so it look like all she has is a sheet of paper with math problems printed on one side and another piece with simple one word answers for a reading assignment. She's holding a copy of Green Eggs and Ham in one hand and a pencil in the other. Mike sits across from her and unloads a pile of books.

“Shh,” she reminds him, holding a finger up to her lips. Mike rolls his eyes. Is this his childhood home or a prison? Holly is turning into a traitor. Billy moved in with them last year, basically right after he graduated high school, and kids Holly's age forget things quickly. Adapt to things even quicker. She's begun to refer to Billy as “dad” and it makes Mike feel sick to his stomach. Billy Hargrove is not her father. He is some nineteen-year-old loser mooching off an older woman who will probably just dump their mother when a more well off sugar momma comes along.

Holly protests against when Mike opens the fridge to look for a snack.

“Dad says-” she begins.

“Dad's in Chicago,” he retorts, ignoring her protests. “And I don't give a shit about what Billy says.” It's Billy's rule that they can't snack before dinner, not his mother's, so to Mike that means it isn't a rule. Besides, Billy doesn't really care if they ruin their appetites. The rule is only there to annoy Mike. It's arbitrary and restrictive just for the sake of it.

There isn't much in the snack department anyway. The fridge isn't kept as well-stocked as it was when their father lived here. Partly because money is tighter, partly because their mother no longer has time to shop as frequently. Two years ago he would have found pre-cut cheese in Tupperware containers, fresh berries, assortments of varied cup snacks like yogurt, pudding, applesauce, and fruit cocktails. Now he has to settle for grabbing a half empty bag of baby carrots. He eats them directly from the bag as he works on his trigonometry.

It isn't long before he hears music coming up the stairs. Up from the basement. His basement. Or what used to be his basement. Mike curls his lip up in disgust. Not just because of the shitty 80s hair metal that Billy is listening to down there but because he hates the idea of anybody taking over that particular spot. If Mike had his say in the matter he would have moved down there entirely and given Billy his own bedroom for his weight room (Billy, of course, wanted the basement so he could blare his music when their mother was sleeping.) To Mike, the basement is a symbol of more carefree, happier days. Of his childhood. Of hide and seek with Nancy. Of video game marathons with Dustin and Lucas. Of his first kiss with El. Of playing pirates with Will.

That same old tightness in his chest. He swallows a mouthful of baby carrot mush oddly, catching as it goes down in an unpleasant way.

He tries not to think of Will.

Will was Mike's first friend, if you don't count Nancy as a friend. They met in kindergarten and were about as close as two young boys could be. It was helpful that Will was also about the sweetest person Mike has ever known. Quiet but physically affectionate, there had been something calming about his presence to Mike who had, admittedly, been an overactive child. Most boys their ages had put on a front of bravado. Forced masculinity. They would repeat curse words they didn't know the meaning of and make dirty remarks about older girls. They would play games like chicken (well, several games had that name, but the one Mike remembers is the one where you would rub an eraser into your forearm until one of you gave up from the pain) and take fake wrestling matches far past what would be considered playful.

But not Will. Will wasn't like that. There were no walls with Will, no barriers. Mike never felt like he had to be somebody he wasn't around him. He didn't have to be tough or brave or dirty or lewd. It was okay to spend an afternoon lying on Will's bed, reading comic books together, overlapping each other like a couple of newborn pups. It had been comfortable and for seven-year-old Mike Wheeler the most important and meaningful relationship of his short life.

Then Will had just disappeared.

They had asked Mike a lot of questions when it happened. Will's family at first, then the police. They asked him when the last time he spoke to Will was. What Will had said. If he had gotten in a car with a stranger. If any strangers had spoken to them recently. If any older boys had spoken to them. If Will had mentioned being bullied. A teacher, their art teacher Mr. Blake, had been taken into custody for awhile. Mike wasn't close to Mr. Blake but he knew Will was. He was Will's favorite teacher. They found pictures of Will in his desk, secret pictures of him playing on the playground or eating lunch outside, but they must have not found Will because they let the teacher go. He never came back to the school and Mike's mother told him to stay away from him if he ever saw him around town.

At the time, Mike didn't understand a lot of what was going on. He just knew his best friend was gone and he kept asking his parents when he would come back. He missed Will and lunch was lonely without him. His mother told him “soon” for a long time. Eventually his father told him “never.”

That day in October 1992 was probably the last truly carefree day of Mike's life. He was only seven years old but it marked the end of his childhood. How can you just go on living in innocence after something like that? It was many years before he truly realized the scope of everything. Younger Mike thought maybe Will had been taken to live under the bed with a family of monsters or maybe adopted by a family of traveling gypsies. Teenage Mike knows it's more probable that some pervert raped and killed him. His body is probably buried somewhere in the woods, maybe hidden beneath the foundation of a house. Somewhere they'll never find him, or at least not until Mike himself is long dead.

Holly is nearly as old as they were when it happened. Mike turns his eyes from his homework to look at his little sister. He imagines something like that happening to her. He imagines her screaming out her last few minutes of life and grips a hard fist around his pencil. He's glad Billy picks her up every day from school. He hates Billy, God does he hate Billy, but Mike knows she's safer in his car than biking home.

“Can you check my homework?” Holly asks sweetly. There's always been something nice about her that is different than Mike or Nancy. Maybe it's just because she's the youngest sibling. She wasn't even alive when Will was around. She reminds Mike of Will, slightly, her calmness and sweetness. Mike takes the math sheet from her and checks over the problems quickly. Simple equations, nothing he can't do in his head. He checks off three wrong answers, lightly with his pencil so she can erase them afterwards, and hands it back to her.

“You did pretty well,” he compliments her. “Just look at those ones a little closer.”

She nods and immediately gets back to work. His own math homework completed, Mike tucks it away and goes to the computer to work on his social studies assignment. He hates when it's his turn to do current events. He doesn't care about current events. What does the teacher think is going to happen that is that important? The United States will be attacked? That the new president is going to get them into a war? So boring.

Mike usually tries to find more interesting, personal stories. Ones about individual people or events. He waits for the internet to connect, gritting his teeth at the annoying screeching of the connection, and then clicks on Netscape. He could use a newspaper but, well, it's 2000, that's what the internet is for. He types in the address for CNN and scrolls down to look for an interesting article. There's an ice storm in the south. A strike in South Korea. He clicks an article on Russian arms sales but it's not as interesting as it sounds. He switches from foreign news to national. At the top of the page is the article on that compound being raided by the police. It's nothing new, Mike already knew about the raid, it happened over a week ago. But at least it is interesting. One of the other students did their presentation on it last week. He almost scrolls by it.

But this is a new article, not the same one from earlier. The one from last week wouldn't still be at the top of the page.

' _Further Investigations on the Purity Cult Reveals Kidnapping Victims_.'

Interesting. He clicks the link and scrolls quickly through the article.

_'All of the victims were taken in the fall of 1992. According to church records, an unknown disease outbreak in the community lead to the deaths of ten children, including several babies. Seven of the children on the compound show no direct genetic link to the other members and three of them have so far been identified. These children are Susan Freeman (14) of Vinita, Oklahoma, Elaine Barker (17) of McCall, Idaho, and William Byers (15) of Hawkins, Indiana. If you recognize the photographs of any of the four unidentified children please contact-”_

Mike stops reading. He blinks, confused, shakes his head. Then he rereads just that part of the article, then he rereads the entire thing all the way through, including the rest of the article he hadn't read previously. By the time he's read it a fourth time his hands are shaking.

No.

No. This can't be right.

William Byers can't be Will Byers. Nobody ever called him William Byers. William Byers may have just been rescued from a cult but Will Byers is dead somewhere, buried in the ground. Mike knows this. He's pictured it so many times. So, so many times. He had to picture that. Because if he didn't picture him dead he had to think of what else could be happening to him. And that was so much worse than him being dead.

Will Byers died when he was seven years old. Will Byers will always be seven years old. He can't be fifteen. And he can't be alive.

He stares at the computer for awhile. Then he clicks over to MSN, looking for somewhere else to find a news article, because maybe CNN just got his name wrong. Or his town. Or both. Probably both. It was probably supposed to be William Buyers from Hawkins, Idaho. The McCall girl was from Idaho, why not just nab two from the same state, right?

Yeah, that seems right.

 

* * *

 

 

Mike can't sleep that night. He's barely dozing when his mother arrives home at nearly three in the morning and he hears her talking to Billy in the bedroom beside his own. He hates seeing them together, he hates hearing them together. Billy isn't just an asshole, he's so fucking young. Only four years older than Mike and the idea of what they do together is gross. He doesn't want to hear it. She always called him “angel” and something about that is wholly disturbing. He doesn't want to hear them talking, and he most certainly doesn't want to hear them fucking.

But he does. He covers his head with the pillow but it doesn't matter. Their beds share a wall and he can almost feel the metal bed frame as it bangs repeatedly at the barrier. Then he hears a long, shuddering moan that he recognizes as his mother's voice and nearly vomits. Mike hurries to dig his CD player out of his backpack and turns it on as quickly as he can, not caring what CD is in it. The louder the better. It's the Offspring, Americana, and he quickly skips the welcoming track because it's too quiet, and starts with the first song on the CD, _Have You Ever_. Only when Dexter Holland's voice is drowning out the horrifying sounds of his mother getting laid is he able to take a deep breath and relax.

How is this possible? Like, yes, Mike knows Billy is nineteen so it's not against the law, despite his own suspicions that this may have started before he was of age. But even if it hadn't, it should be illegal to fuck somebody your child's age. Billy might be older than Mike but he's the same age as Nancy. Billy and Nancy went to school together! No wonder she's not coming home for Christmas. Mike wouldn't either, if he didn't live here. He could probably live with his dad, in Chicago, but then he'd not be around his friends anymore. Besides, his father always takes him to dirty bars or the race tracks for “bonding time.” Or the strip club. There's one strip club his father is extremely fond of that doesn't ask for an ID and he keeps trying to persuade Mike to accept a lap dance, on him. It's humiliating. Maybe better than being around Billy though. His father doesn't hit him.

Mike isn't even sure if he's happy that next week is Christmas. He's excited to be out of school, but Billy is “looking for a job” so he'll be around the house too. He hasn't been this unexcited for a Christmas since, well, since 1992.

There's that pain in his chest again. He glances over at the clock. It's 3:15. Tomorrow is going to be a long day at school and he hasn't finished his social studies homework yet. He doesn't have social until afternoon, he can do the write up at lunch, but he still needs something to write on.

Maybe he should just sneak downstairs and print up the article, so he's not rushing around. Considering he's still awake at this hour he'll need to sleep in as late as he can. It will show the time on the print out, but whatever, Mrs. Shrieve can know he's printing up homework at three in the morning. He doesn't care.

He keeps the headphones on and carries the CD player in his right hand as he glances quickly both ways in the hallway before he heads down the stairs. Nancy's door is open and something about that makes him sad. Nancy should be here and if she was her door would be closed. It's less than a week until Christmas, Nancy has never missed a Christmas at home. Mike has never celebrated a Christmas without her.

The lights on the tree are all lit up so he doesn't need to turn any lights on as he walks quietly through the living room and into the den. The den is dark, nobody has bothered to decorate it, but the screensaver is bright enough to help him make his way to the computer. Holly has it set for the maze because she likes when the giant mouse shows up, always laughing and clapping in excitement when it does so. Mike wonders what it would have been like to have a computer when he was her age. They only got it two years ago; their father insisted the internet was the future and it was time they all jumped aboard. Nancy had remarked, behind his back, that their father was reciting advertisements at them again.

Mechanically, he brings up the article on the cult and selects the print button. A second too late he remembers he should have checked for paper because the thing never seems to have any. It jams if there's more than three sheets of paper in the feeder. Mike grabs a few sheets from on top of the desk, dusting them off, then stoops down to where the printer is on the bottom shelf. It's making painful sounding grinding noises but there is one sheet of printer paper already available. Thankfully. Otherwise it would give him an error and cause a bunch of other issues that would probably leave him here for a half hour trying to print up five pieces of paper. God, he hates computers sometimes.

Crouching down, he feeds the printer two pieces of paper at a time until it clicks to a stop.

It's when he's standing back up he spots the gray box shape on the shelf above the printer. It's shoved far in the back, covered in dust. Frowning, Mike reaches for it, and pulls it out. He's not sure why it's here. It was down in the basement, safe and snug beneath the television with all his VHS tapes. Somebody removed it and put it up here with the computer equipment, shoving it far back against the wall so it was not easily visible.

The boxy shape is made of smooth plastic, the top a light gray, the bottom a dark. On the front left, near the top, reads the words _Nintendo Entertainment System_. Mike's Nintendo. He received it as a birthday present in 1988 from his grandmother and he loved the thing. Some of his earliest memories are of trying to get through the original Super Mario Brothers, with Nancy yelling at his side when he should jump or shoot. The controllers had seemed so large in his hands back then. They're still plugged in, dragging behind the console. He unravels one and holds it in his hand now. It feels so small and stiff in his hands. It lacks the curves and comfort of modern controllers. But there's something bittersweet and nostalgic as he presses the primitive feeling buttons beneath his thumbs. They make a small clicking noise. He doesn't remember them clicking before, maybe it's just the silence of the den.

He should take it upstairs. It's his Nintendo, he can't get in trouble for taking it.

Except, except it's not his Nintendo. Not really.

For Christmas of 1991, his last, true Christmas, his father bought him a Super Nintendo. He had begged for it for practically a year, quoting the advertisements about bits and graphics (now Mike knows where he got that from) and it had been the only thing listed on his list to Santa that year. Will had been so happy for him and they had spent all of the remaining Christmas break playing Super Mario World in the basement. When Christmas break was over, Mike had given Will his original Nintendo as a late Christmas gift. “I don't need this anymore and I know you always wanted one. So here, take it. Don't worry about it, I can just play it at your house.”

He never did play it again. Ever. Even after Jonathan brought it back to his house in August 1995, telling him, “Our parents are getting a divorce. Our new place is too small so we need to get rid of some of his stuff. I thought you'd like this back.”

He had accepted it, thanking Jonathan for bringing it back to him. By then it had been a long time since he had spoken to Jonathan. It was too weird. It was still weird. Jonathan had mumbled something and immediately departed after that. He never even came into the house.

Mike slides down onto the floor, pulling his knees up to his chest, and rests the Nintendo on top of them. It's lighter than he remembers. It seemed heavier to a six-year-old. He balances the controller on top of the console and looks down at his hands. The den is still only illuminated by the computer screen and the shadows are heavy across his fingers.

This is Will's controller. Not was, is. Because Will is still alive. Mike isn't an Indian giver. This is still Will's console. Will was the last one to play this Nintendo. Will was the last one to use these controllers. Mike thinks about seven-year-old Will's tiny fingers on the controller. How much smaller they would be compared to how his own look now on the old, gray plastic.

He thinks about when he gave the Nintendo to Will. He thinks about how small Will had looked as he tried to fit it into his backpack, before giving up and just carrying it in his arms. His mother had picked up him and, seeing the console, had asked Mike if he was supposed to be taking it with him.

“I gave it to him,” he had nodded, “So he has something to play at home. It's a gift.”

“Are you sure? It's an expensive gift.”

“I'm sure.”

Then Mrs. Byers had ruffled his hair and told him he was a good boy. She was always nice to him. Even when Will went missing and was a crying mess she had hugged him and told him he was a good boy. “You were always such a good friend to him, Mike. He loved you.”

Loved. Because even Mrs. Byers had accepted the fact that Will was dead.

But Will isn't dead.

Mike hugs the Nintendo to his chest and buries his face into his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the short chapter but this is just a prologue. There will be Byler eventually. Yes, this is inspired by LA Devotee. And no, this won't be all Jonathan POV. If you've read my other stuff you'll know I like to switch POVs a lot.


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